Long-running personal injury cases due to lingering insurers

An average of 75,000 accidents involving injuries happen every year. These include accidents in traffic, while performing work or medical mishaps. Over 90 percent of personal injury cases are settled within two years. Nevertheless, there are some 6,000 cases annually that run longer than two years. At Munten Personal Injury, we deal with the slow settlement of personal injury cases with some regularity. This is logical because we handle the more serious cases. Yet we refuse to accept that these cases should take so long: speed is one of the most important conditions for a pleasant claim settlement. In this article we explain where the slowness comes from and what we do about it.

Long-term files

For some time now, the slow settlement of personal injury cases has been discussed in the literature, the personal injury industry and in the media. The Personal Injury Council therefore commissioned the University of Utrecht in 2018 to find out the reason for this slow settlement. The study revealed that over 14,000 personal injury cases in the Netherlands run longer than five years. The cause of long-running personal injury cases turned out to be very diverse. According to the researchers, however, no one culprit can be assigned, but all parties involved contribute to the long duration of the case.

The duration of a personal injury case is often long because there are many parties involved. All parties have their own views and conflicting interests in the case. In addition, a case often takes longer because there can be disputes at various points. For example, there is much discussion about who is liable, what injuries were caused by the accident and whether the victim can get better. In addition to discussion about these points, discussion also often arises about the amount of compensation and whether there is a medical end state, this is often done through a medical assessment.

Long-term Injury Chamber

Following research conducted by the University of Utrecht on long-term cases, the Minister for Legal Protection asked the Council to establish a Chamber for Long-Term Personal Injury Cases (hereafter: the Chamber). According to the Council, the establishment of the Chamber arose from the reasoning that it is in the interest of the victim to settle a case more quickly and fairly. Yet, according to the Council, not only victims but also insurers have an interest in the final settlement of a long-running personal injury case. The Chamber has dealt with 10 cases so far. A pittance of the actual problem cases.

Independent working method

The Chamber is an independent party consisting of a chairman and three members appointed by the board. By reducing the number of long-term cases, the Chamber aims to reduce the number of cases in the future. In doing so, the Chamber works in three lines:

• Expedite existing long-term cases by dealing with them in the House;
• By providing a system solution to reduce delays in new business;
• By improving the process and continuing to monitor this process through customer satisfaction surveys.

Methods Coins Personal Injury

As stated above, we refuse to resign ourselves to slow settlement. There is indeed something we can do to speed things up. That sometimes takes some guts and sometimes a big mouth. Insurers are massively understaffed so every letter ends up at the bottom of the pile. The only thing that helps then is to keep stalking for important letters. Also proactively requesting information that has not yet been asked for and continuously updating claims statements helps to get the momentum going.

Contact

If you would like more information about the Chamber and its practices, please click on this link. If you have been injured in an accident and have suffered personal injury, please contact us at: 06-21152677 or 0610251574 . Would you rather email us? Then contact us at wouter@muntenletselschade.nl or merel@muntenletselschade.nl. We will then check with you immediately to see if we can help you further.